Introduction

• Working with ProCogia
  • Official full service partner with Posit.
  • Experts in Data Analytics, Data Engineering, Data Science, BioInformatics, R Development, Setup and Administration.
• Background: Computer Science Engineer and MBA in Business Analytics.
• Using R and R Shiny for 6+ years.
• Architected, built and managed more than 40+ R Shiny applications and dashboards.
• Built and led teams of 10+ R developers.
• Trained 30+ colleagues on R from diverse backgrounds.
• Have extensive hands on experience on all flavors of R products - Shiny, R Markdowns, Quarto, and Package development.
• Curious to learn.

Overview

Hello There!

In this lightning talk, we will touch base on the following high level topics to boost your R development experience.

• Streamlining Workflow Essentials
• Shiny Development Tips
• Productivity Hacks
• Mastering Shortcuts

Streamlining Workflow Essentials

• Use RStudio Projects
  • Why Should I use it?
• Organize your project structure.
  • Use/Create a standard project template.
• Leverage package management tools
  • Utilize renv or packrat to manage package dependencies.
  • Ensure reproducibility and minimize version conflicts.
• Version Control with Git
  • Track changes, collaborate with team members, and manage project history effectively using Git.
  • Use Issues, Pull Requests and Connected Commits for efficient and effortless parallel development.

Using RStudio Projects

RStudio projects make it straightforward to divide your work into multiple contexts, each with their own working directory, workspace, history, and source documents.

Organize your project structure

Shiny Development Tips

• Optimize Server logic
  • Minimize unnecessary computations and avoid redundant calculations.
  • Profile your code to identify bottlenecks with profvis
• Use General Coding principles
  • DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)
  • YAGNI (You aren’t going to need it)
  • KISS (Keep it Simple Silly)
  • Document your code for humans.
  • Clean Code at all costs
  • Separation of Concerns

Shiny Development Tips

• Utilize Reactive programming
  • Use Waterfall reactivity model.
  • Avoid Spaghetti Reactivity mess.
  • Leverage Shiny’s reactivity to update UI elements dynamically based on user input.
  • This enhances interactivity and responsiveness.
• Implement efficient UI components
  • Prototype the UI layout using draw.io or similar tools.
  • Use conditional panels, modules, and well-designed layouts to create a user-friendly interface.
  • Iterate rapidly to test how different implementations enhance UI/UX

Productivity Hacks

• Debugging like a pro
  • Debug via browser(), debug(function_name), and debug points.
  • Set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables to troubleshoot efficiently.
• Profiling and performance tuning
  • Use tools like profvis to identify performance bottlenecks and Optimize critical sections of your code for speed.
  • Use benchmarking techniques to compare computation speeds of various packages. Refer R function rbenchmark::benchmark().
• Automate repetitive tasks with scripts
  • Write scripts to automate routine tasks such as data pre-processing, cleaning, visualization and report generation.
  • Refactor code into functions with parameters for versatile reusability across projects.

Mastering Shortcuts

• RStudio IDE shortcuts
  • Learn key shortcuts for common actions like running code, navigating files, and managing tabs.
  • Boost your coding speed and efficiency.
• Shiny-specific keyboard tricks
  • Use keyboard shortcuts for navigating the app, toggling between UI and server code, and inserting common Shiny functions.
• Time-saving code snippets
  • Store frequently used code snippets in RStudio’s code snippets pane for quick access.

Keyboard Shortcuts at a glance

RStudio provides dozens of useful shortcuts that you can access through the menu at the top:

Tools > Keyboard Shortcuts Help.

Thank you

• Quarto presentation code available on GitHub at http://surl.li/lhpmy
• Slides available on GitHub Pages at http://surl.li/lhplo
• Connect and/or send me a DM for a follow up question or catch up
  • Linkedin: mayank-agrawal-7jan
  • Twitter: mayank7jan

References

• RStudio Shortcuts Cheat sheet:

  • RStudio IDE Toolbar: Help –> Keyboard Shortcuts Help

  • Mac: Option + Shift + K

  • Windows: Alt + Shift + K

• Customizing the RStudio IDE: Link 1 Link 2

• Comprehensive documentation and self help guides for using RStudio IDE Link

• Using RStudio Projects. Link

• Posit Cheat Sheets Link

• Project package management packages - renv and packrat

• profvis for code profiling and time estimation